Join Honor the Earth in Making a Stand Against Pipelines, for a Better Future

Posted by Margaret Campbell968.40sc on April 01, 2014

Sometimes you have to just make a stand.

This past six months at Honor the Earth have been breathtaking. Breathtaking, in that we’ve summoned up our courage, trained new young leaders, and joined with local lakeshore owners and farmers to challenge the biggest fracked oil pipelines and some huge tar sands pipelines that threaten our water, our sacred wild rice, our economy and our way of life. Minnesota is becoming the pipeline battle ground.

The Alberta Clipper pipeline is already in, and the Enbridge Corporation hopes to double the pipeline’s size to carry 880,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil. Line 3 is proposed to double its capacity. The Sandpiper pipeline is proposed, and will cut through our wild rice territory on the White Earth reservation, moving 375,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from the Bakken Oil Fields. And now the corporation wants to do more. Minnesota is today the Canadian oil super-highway, and this is a threat to our water – and everything else, too. The Enbridge corporation has had over 800 leaks, including the Kalamazoo Spill, which was the largest pipeline spill in US history. This company wants to move more oil, and it wants to move it into Lake Superior, adding tankers and refinery capacity, to the place where one fifth of the worlds’ fresh water is. We are saying no, and we need your help. Please join us.

Our lakes and rivers are healthy. Minnesota has some of the most amazing water in the world and we believe it should stay healthy, full of wild rice, ducks and water lilies. This fall, we rode our horses on the Enbridge Alberta Clipper and Sandpiper lines to draw attention to the pipelines, and to protect our Mother Earth. We met a lot of people, had meals in many communities, and learned that people want their water protected, and want to help. We put up billboards to draw attention to the issue, and to challenge a corporation whose proposal threatens all of us.

We intervened in the Minnesota Public Utility Commission’s regulatory decision making process, and found out how difficult it is. For instance, the process for public input on the route permit is now open for comments or alternatives on the preferred Enbridge Sandpiper pipeline route, but the company has refused to provide a map, citing national security concerns.

Let me tell you who we are. We are Anishinaabe people from Minnesota. We are wild rice and medicinal plant harvesters, we are mothers and grandmothers, and we are intent upon protecting all of this land. We are finding that we are not alone. This past fall, we began to work with landowners in Carlton and Hubbard County, and together we are challenging the largest oil transporter in North America. Together, we are at every hearing, asking lakeshore associations, counties and public officials to protect our water and our future.

Please join us. Send a donation to help us all defend the lakes and rivers of the north. Your donations are tax deductible. And, every bit counts.

We also ask that you voice your concerns about the Enbridge preferred Sandpiper pipeline route during the comment period, open now until April 4th. You can submit your own written testimony about the negative impacts of this proposal. Visit Honor the Earth’s Action page for an example of a written comment and details on how to submit a letter to the Minnesota Department of Commerce: http://www.honorearth.org/sandpiper_comment.

Honor the Earth rejects the Enbridge Sandpiper proposal due to the project’s unsound nature. This is a pipeline, not one site, and the process is being pushed at an alarming rate, attempting to condense the public input phase into only three months. There is no way for a comprehensive scientific and legal anaylsis to be completed in the timeframe that Enbridge has put forward. Honor the Earth has requested for a PUC meeting to happen on the White Earth reservation to make it possible for the community to speak face-to-face with the company and regulatory agencies who would put a pipeline line near their sacred land and waters, we have yet to hear back from anyone regarding this issue.

In addition, Honor the Earth is advocating with other concerned groups to request that the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and Department of Commerce extend the public comment period for an alternative route proposals until October 31, 2014. To sign the Friends of the Headwaters petition to extend the comment period go to: http://www.friendsoftheheadwaters.org/take-action.html.

Honor the Earth is a small organization, but we are committed and agile. We are a Native environmental organization, and we are here on the White Earth reservation. Your funds will go to our work, and our combined efforts with all people from the north. This is our collective future. Stand with us to protect Mother Earth.